Category: Pop Culture

Back in February we revealed here at borg.com the latest in Funko’s more than 20 licensed films and TV series in its 2015 ReAction action figure line first discussed at borg.comhere and here, and now we have images of the carded figures and sculpts for many more new figures. We also have links to allow readers to be among the first to pre-order them all from online collectibles store Entertainment Earth. We’re still waiting for final images for Jaws, Gremlins, Scarface, and Fight Club, but we have pre-order information plus images and links to pre-order the new ReAction line for CW’s The Flash, The Karate Kid, Disney’s Tomorrowland, and the second wave of original series Star Trek figures. We shared links for the first figures in the new Star Trek original series line last month here.

Better yet, you can now pre-order two new exclusive Funko ReAction figures, available only from Entertainment Earth. Order the two exclusive liquid chrome “metallic” T1000 Terminator 2 figures (above, top) by clicking on the above images.

Word from Funko’s blog is that Phoebe Cates is not authorizing a likeness for the Gremlins line. Here’s the prototype from Toy Fair 2015:

This may mean both the Gremlins and Fast Times at Ridgemont High lines will be hindered by missing her key characters from these films. Even though her figure looked nothing like the actress (as with most figures in the retro line) she apparently has some control of over not only her image but reproductions based on her characters.

Click on the images below to see full-sized images of figures and cards and to pre-order each from Entertainment Earth.

Still yet to be revealed are figures from The Dark Crystal, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, The Big Lebowski, Scarface (although Al Pacino’s figure was previewed at Toy Fair 2015), V for Vendetta, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial, The A-Team, The Munsters, and Aliens.

We’ve already shown some photos of a great set of little green army men as well as the best Arrow cosplay from Planet Comicon 2015, but we have a few more images to share. Not surprisingly, with a new Star Wars film due out by year end, Star Wars cosplay could be seen everywhere this past weekend. One couple, shown above, expertly recreated the Clone Wars villain Asajj Ventris and Jedi Shaak Ti.

It’s hard to beat all the great Imperial armored soldiers that appear at Cons these days. This speeder bike trooper was no exception. If you’re not willing to create your own outfit, ANOVOS and other companies now make it possible for anyone to wear screen-accurate Star Wars costumes.

Several homemade remote-controlled astromech droids could be found skimming across the convention floor. Who wouldn’t want one of these at home? I remember when I first saw an R2 unit at a Con more than a decade ago and it was the highlight of the show. Now we take these awesome robots for granted.

Boba Fetts were everywhere, too, but we really liked this steampunk riveted helmet take on the mysterious bounty hunter.

In addition to great creators from outside the Midwest, like Black Widow artist Phil Noto (as we mentioned here at borg.com yesterday), the great thing about returning to a Con year after year is running into all our friends who write, sketch, or paint incredible works for a living. Planet Comicon 2015 was no different.

Take for instance Des Moines artist Ant Lucia (pictured above). Three years ago Ant was just beginning to put together great genre characters like DC superheroes and Star Wars characters in a unique retro style of poster art. Flash forward to 2014 and an entire month of cover art at DC Comics was devoted to his creations, and statues based on his DC Bombshell designs are selling off the shelves in every town across the country. Ant’s beautiful designs are second to none, and there’s not a more deserving guy to achieve such success from his ideas.

Other creators at Planet Comicon this weekend with national success included Jason Aaron, who had his own rock star sized line of fans getting his new Star Wars series autographed, as well as artist Freddie Williams II, drawing sketches for fans and signing copies of his Legendary Starlord series, among other works.

Pictured above are artists Damont Jordan and Bryan Fyffe. Damont had a new “spirit fox” print available that blew us away, and he churned out sketches for fans all weekend long. And we noticed other artists at the Con were coming to Bryan’s booth to buy his framed art for their own homes. Bryan has the best eye for design of anyone we know, and creates a variety of inspired multi-media works. His most recent commercial illustration was for some major franchise properties, as well as the cover of John Renehan’s new novel The Valley. Check out some of his work at his website here.

The three-day Planet Comicon comic book and pop culture convention wrapped yesterday in Kansas City. The highlight of the day for thousands of attendees was the one-day visit to the show by Stephen Amell, star of the CW Network’s Arrow TV series. If you’ve been reading borg.com for very long, you’ll know I’ve been tracking the show as the world’s biggest Green Arrow fan, including spending the night with 7,000 other fans in San Diego for the show premiere with Amell and his co-stars back in 2012.

After hanging with his cousin (and CW star of The Flash) Robbie Amell last night at the Elite Comics after party at the Alamo Drafthouse, we got to meet Stephen today. As you’d expect, fans were happy to meet him, and he kept a cheery disposition throughout a whirlwind day of signing autographs and being featured on a panel at the convention.

Because he was only at the show for one day, that meant plenty of lines to get to see him–lines that barely even looked like lines.

But as typical with attendees at comic book conventions, everyone handled it all with great attitudes.

Plenty of fun was in store for everyone attending Planet Comicon 2015 this weekend. With the Big 12 Championship basketball tourney between the Iowa State Cyclones and the Kansas Jayhawks, downtown Kansas City was booming Saturday. At the third annual Planet Comicon at the Kansas City Convention Center at Bartle Hall, actors, writers, artists, cosplayers, vendors, and tens of thousands of fans of everything from comic books to toys and from Doctor Who to Walking Dead continued the convention tradition of sharing their common interests in a positive and exciting environment.

Elizabeth C. Bunce and your humble editor from borg.com were back again meeting up with creators and friends from past years (this year as Daniel Craig’s Jake Lonergan from Cowboys and Aliens and Kate Beckinsale’s Anna Valerius from Van Helsing). Check out the great little green toy army men cosplayers at the show above.

Kent McCord, known best for his role on the classic TV series Adam-12, shared some great stories about working with Martin Milner, Jack Webb, Harry Morgan, and Stephen J. Cannell. What better than to spend the day chatting with someone who has starred in shows like Dragnet and Unsub?

We also had a great time with Mitch Pileggi, co-star of one of the all-time best genre TV series, The X-Files. He talked about the possible renewal of his role of Director Skinner on a rebooted X-Files series and working with Judith Light on TNT’s reboot of Dallas as Harris Ryland.

The biggest pop culture and comic book convention ever in the region begins today. It’s the third annual Planet Comicon to be held in its new venue–the Kansas City Convention Center at Bartle Hall. This year is even bigger than last year’s show, with more vendor space and more creators in Artists Alley. Set-up began yesterday morning and continued until late last night.

We discussed some of the media guests previously here at borg.com. You can get a current line-up at the Con’s website here.

Don’t know where to begin? Start here, with this short list creators and attractions to check out:

Never before has a confluence of events ever pointed to you needing to be at one place at one moment.

First, this Saturday is March 14–the annual Pi Day. If you’ve forgotten all you learned about math, check out this great website here to catch up. In brief, Pi is a number that makes it easy to calculate the area and volume of circles and cylindrical objects. Not only is this year’s Pi Day–“3/14″ or March 14–a day for math aficionados to celebrate all things mathematic, this year Pi Day has one of the magical numeric events that technically allows everyone to experience a moment of Pi at once but to its infinite digits past the decimal point. It’s because of the 15 in the year 2015. It’s something that happens every 100 years. Pi is 3.14159265 plus a gazillion other digits. So on March 14, 2015, at 1:59 a.m. or p.m. for a split second it’s Pi time. Does Pi have any practical application affixed to a calendar date and time? Heck no! But any excuse to party…

And of all weeks this week Archie Comics is celebrating Pi with a digital comic book featuring Jughead and his love of pies. Pi and pie just goes together, right? Add to that, Archie Comics has a new “Giant Comics Party” issue coming out this week, too–just in time for Planet Comicon–the show that blew the walls down at the Kansas City Convention Center at Bartle Hall last year with the biggest Saturday turn-out of any event at that venue–ever. (After the break, check out two previews of the two new Archie comic books, courtesy of the guys at Archie Comics).

Which brings us to this weekend’s “Giant Comics Party” at Planet Comicon: Elite Comics’ Second Annual Party on the Pillar, located of course at the giant pillar within the Kansas City Convention Center. Get thee to Planet Comicon March 13-15, 2015, and check out all the great comics (thousands of ‘em), toys, shirts, and other collectibles Elite Comics and all the other great vendors at the Con have to offer. What better place to celebrate Pi Day?

Starting this Wednesday, March 11, 2015, through April, expect to see more of an angry alien duck coming your way. Last seen in the coda to last summer’s Guardians of the Galaxy, Howard the Duck’s presence was a surprise for everyone. And Marvel Studios swears we won’t be seeing him in a movie coming anytime soon. Yet the nostalgia for Steve Gerber and Val Mayerik’s mad-as-hell duck hasn’t waned any. He’s getting his own series–his second monthly and third overall, including a mini-series 14 years ago–and 20 other Marvel titles will feature variant covers incorporating Howard.

We have a preview of the new Howard the Duck, Issue #1 after the break.

Something old, something new, and another issue of your favorite mash-up await you this Wednesday at your local comic book store. The brilliant mini-series The X-Files: Year Zero gets a trade paperback release. The series was borg.com‘s Best TV/Movie-Tie-in on last year’s Best of 2014 List. Writer Jimmy Palmiotti, whose run on All-Star Western and his creator-owned Trigger Girl 6 rank among the top of our favorite comic book stories, has something completely new with his mini-series The Big Con Job. Has-been classic TV actors on the convention circuit decide to band together to rob San Diego Comic-Con in this quirky new series. And Issue #3 of IDW Publishing’s inspired crossover of classic Star Trek and Planet of the Apes, The Primate Directive is here.

If you’re a subscriber to the Star Trek/Apes series, check out this great cover coming your way:

First up, a look at The X-Files Year Zero trade paperback. It includes a nice cover gallery of the great pulp covers that were variant covers for the mini-series. After the break, check out all our previews:

What more can be said about the man who portrayed the greatest science fiction icon of all time? In the annals of Star Trek, Leonard Nimoy’s Mr. Spock managed to live beyond 150 years into the 24th century. In the 21st century you can count yourself lucky to have lived a happy life into your 80s. Nimoy not only provided millions with decades of happiness via the character he created, he inspired generations and a legion of loyal fans. So while the world mourns the loss of the great humanitarian behind our favorite Vulcan, what better time to celebrate what we loved so much about him? This weekend, cable channels like EPIX will be holding many tributes to allow fans to join in and celebrate the life of Leonard Nimoy.

Many have commented in the past 24 hours about Leonard Nimoy’s passing yesterday, and they illustrate the influence he had on us all. The finest came from our President:

Long before being nerdy was cool, there was Leonard Nimoy. Leonard was a lifelong lover of the arts and humanities, a supporter of the sciences, generous with his talent and his time. And of course, Leonard was Spock. Cool, logical, big-eared and level-headed, the center of Star Trek’s optimistic, inclusive vision of humanity’s future.I loved Spock.In 2007, I had the chance to meet Leonard in person. It was only logical to greet him with the Vulcan salute, the universal sign for “Live long and prosper.” And after 83 years on this planet – and on his visits to many others – it’s clear Leonard Nimoy did just that. Michelle and I join his family, friends, and countless fans who miss him so dearly today.

And here is what NASA, via administrator Charles Bolden, had to say:

Leonard Nimoy was an inspiration to multiple generations of engineers, scientists, astronauts, and other space explorers. As Mr. Spock, he made science and technology important to the story, while never failing to show, by example, that it is the people around us who matter most.

NASA was fortunate to have him as a friend and a colleague. He was much more than the Science Officer for the USS Enterprise. Leonard was a talented actor, director, philanthropist, and a gracious man dedicated to art in many forms.